Recently there has been a huge demand in self-assembled structures such as furniture, i.e. tables, chairs, cabinets and the like. These types of self-assembled furniture are also widely known as “Do It Yourself” furniture. A user can purchase said furniture in loose forms which are packed in a packaging. The user will have to assembled the said loose forms of the furniture according to an assembly instructions enclosed in the packaging to form a one piece rigid structure.
The present inventor has observed one disadvantage in the prior art method of assembling said furniture. To further describe the disadvantage, reference is made to FIG. 1, which shows a perspective view of a one tier pre-assembled table (10). Said table (10) consists of a pair of rectangular shaped flat boards (12A, 12B), four elongated supporting rods (14) and four leg members (16). Further to this, each of the said flat boards (12A, 12B) is provided with four bores (18A) and (18B) respectively. The terminal end portions of each of the said elongated supporting rods (14) are provided with a threaded portion (20). Generally, the threaded portion (20) has a smaller diametrical dimension compared to the diametrical dimension of the elongated supporting rod (14). Each of the said bores (18A) and (18B) are designed in such a manner that the internal diametrical dimension of each of the bores (18A, 18B) is smaller in dimension compared to the external diametrical dimension of the elongated supporting member (14) but greater then the external diametrical dimension of the threaded portion (20) (not illustrated). With this configuration, when the elongated supporting members (14) are introduced into the bores (18A) of board (12A), the said board (12A) will rest on the terminal edges of the said elongated supporting member (14). Each of the bores (18A) at the upper surface of the flat board (12A) is further provided with a cap member (22). Said cap member (22) consists of a cap portion (24) and an externally threaded cylindrical member (26). The externally threaded cylindrical member (26) is design to be adapted onto the threaded portion (20) of each of the elongated supporting rods (14) by screw-threaded means. The other flat board (12B) is introduced and assembled in the same manner as described above. The only difference is that, the bores (18B) at the lower surface of the flat board (12B) are adapted fixed to the said leg members (16). When all the components have been assembled, the table (10) as shown in FIG. 1 is formed. The disadvantage of this type of assembly is at the upper surface of the flat board (12A).
The upper surface of the flat board (12A) is no longer a smooth surface. The four cap members (22) are clearly noticeable and this can be an eye sore to certain individuals. There was an attempt to create a smooth upper surface by providing a flat board with a thicker dimension. Further to this, each bore is only created half way through the thickness of the flat board. The elongated supporting rods are either matingly fixed into the bores or are fixed to the bores by means of screw threading. The internal of the bore is threaded by creating grooves along its inner perimeter sidewall or by inserting an external component which is provided with threading means. However, these types of configurations have resulted in the user to utilized tools to assembled said furniture. This is against the actual idea of ‘do it yourself’ furniture where the user is not required to use any type of tools when assembling the furniture. Further to this, the attachment between to structure by these means is not strong and may fail if it is often assembled and dissembled.
Therefore, it is the objective of the present invention to introduce an improvement in the method of assembling parts of a furniture and introducing a new device for performing the said method.
Another objective of the present invention is to ensure that the upper surface of the furniture is always smooth without the present of any visible components.
Another objective of the present invention is to ensure that the user is not required to use any type of tools when assembling a furniture and at the same time ensuring that the strength of the attached parts of the furniture is preserved.